Sunday, February 2, 2014

Bright Stars focuses on the Japanese aesthetic of ‘akarui’—bright, light, illuminated, brilliant, shiny, brassy, active, energetic, noisy, loud, happy, drunk, passionate, wild, playful, vivid, and boundless. That doesn’t mean there is no darkness—black is a color too, but our dark poems are actively dark, not a sighing shade of grey.

Bright Stars is devoted to five line poetry—tanka, waka, kyoka, gogyoshi, shaped tanka, tanka sequence, tanka prose, collaborative tanka—any form based on the short, lyrical, five part poem originally from Japan. We welcome experimentation and variation (including sedoka)—there are other venues that publish traditional tanka, but Bright Stars dreams of the future, not the past.
Bright Stars is especially open to poets who have not previously published tanka, and two thirds of the voices in Volume 1 have never or only rarely been published in tanka venues. Bright Stars also encourages established poets to send their experimental work, their new directions, and their innovations. Collectively, the poets bring fresh new viewpoints that expand the range of subjects, approaches, and techniques in tanka literature today.

to the notion of publishing fresh perspectives is the idea that tanka ought to be available to as many people as possible. Therefore, Bright Stars is available in an economical large format that contains 1000 poems for only $10 USD (£6.00 GBP / €7.00 EUR) and a Kindle ebook for only $5 USD. Small presses, because they sell so few copies, normally have to set the cover price at a level that allows them to recoup expenses. Keibooks has carefully calculated the risks and hopes that expanded sales will cover the cost of production. We are committed to the project for one year. We encourage readers to purchase copies to donate to schools and libraries, and our Educational Use Policy facilitates the use of Bright Stars in any educational setting.
Sample Poems: